Dr. David D. Ho, MIT Class of 1978 in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and TIME Magazine's 1996 Man of the Year, will present a special seminar for the MIT and Harvard communities June 4, HST's graduation day.
The topic of Dr. Ho's seminar, which he will deliver at 4 pm at the Whitehead Institute auditorium following the Division's graduation exercises, is "Dynamics of HIV Replication and Implication for Therapy." Dr. Ho has received widespread acclaim for his ground-breaking work on HIV and AIDS research. As scientific director and CEO of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City, he has changed dramatically the conventional thinking about how HIV attacks the human body.
Under Dr. Ho's direction, Diamond Center researchers have played a key role in identifying the CCR5 molecule as a central gateway for the entry of HIV into CD4 lymphocytes. The Center has also published important studies examining the details of HIV replication in an infected person, the natural resistance of some individuals to HIV infection, and the reduction of HIV to undetectable levels in the blood, semen and lymph tissue through combination drug therapy.
Dr. Ho is a professor and physician at Rockefeller University. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute and a council member for the Office of AIDS Research at NIH. He has served on several other advisory councils and boards, helping to set the direction for medical research at government institutions and major research hospitals.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 21, 1997.
